Tag Archives: city

Digital Solutions

Digital Solutions
Street scene in Lower Manhattan, evening.

Digital Solutions. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Street scene in Lower Manhattan, evening.

Considering that I have recently shared photograph from our December 2021 visit to pandemic-stricken New York City, you might think that this photograph, with its appropriately empty street and sidewalk, might come from that trip. You would be incorrect. This photograph comes from our last visit before the Great Lockdown, back in the late winter of 2019, when we spent a week wandering freely around Manhattan, stopping wherever we wanted to for food and drink, wandering into museums, and mingling in crowds. The quiet scene shown here was, at that time, the exception to the rule.

If I recall correctly, I made the photograph on a relatively long we made from Midtown all the way down to Lower Manhattan, starting in the afternoon and ending around sunset. This photograph comes from that wonderful time of day when it isn’t yet dark — and buildings are still lit by the fading ambient light — but the lights of businesses and offices have started to come on, illuminating interiors and spilling light out onto the sidewalks.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Masked Women

Masked Women
Two masked women in conversation during the December 2021 Omicron surge, Manhattan

Masked Women. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two masked women in conversation during the December 2021 Omicron surge, Manhattan

Back in mid-December the pandemic surged again with the arrival of the omicron variant in the United States. Just when we (at least those of use who are triple-vaccinated) thought things were beginning to ease up, case numbers skyrocketed. We had made plans for a holiday visit to New York City, and as we watched the evolving news stories we wondered whether or not to go. In the end, while the “right” answer remained unclear, we decided to take extra precautions and continue with our plans… and embarked on a weeklong visit just before Christmas.

We love New York. We like the crowds and the energy, dropping into restaurants, visiting museums, walking through the parks, and all the rest of the Manhattan experience. It helps that two of our “kids” and their spouses live there. (They were our main reason for the trip.) Beginning with the carefully masked airline travel, much of this trip was unlike any New York visit we’ve made in the past. By the time we arrived, the city was in the grip of the omicron surge. The streets (at least by Manhattan standards) were nearly empty. The few restaurant meals we indulged in were at cold outdoor tables. Almost everyone was masked. These two women are perhaps emblematic of the experience — outdoors on a cold winter day, sitting masked in the open air on a bench for a few moments of conversation.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

The Oculus

The Oculus
The central skylight of the Oculus, World Trade Center, New York City.

The Oculus. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The central skylight of the Oculus, World Trade Center, New York City.

Almost exactly two years ago we were in New York City for a week spent visiting relatives, making photographs, eating out, and generally wandering about as we pleased. Yes, this was before the Great Transition that came in March of 2020. (We recently visiting New York City again in the post-transition world, and it isn’t the same experience at all. I’m looking forward to a time when it is once again.) To be precise, we were there for most of the period between about Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

At some point — perhaps while on a long walk or possible at the termination of a subway ride — we ended up in Lower Manhattan in the vicinity of the World Trade Center, where this fascinating Oculus structure is located. It is a combination of shopping area and transit terminal, but it is also an arresting architectural presence. Its organic, rib-like structure contrasts with the cubic forms of most of the surrounding buildings. Inside, especially if you lift your eyes above the lower floor shopping area, it is a remarkable interior space that, in many ways, suggest some sort of light-filled cathedral.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Reflecting Sidewalk

Reflecting Sidewalk
Brilliant winter sunshine on an urban Manhattan sidewalk.

Reflecting Sidewalk. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Brilliant winter sunshine on an urban Manhattan sidewalk.

This photograph comes from an earlier winter visit to New York City back in 2019. Those were the days! Despite the cold (quite severe cold, actually) we bundled up and went out on foot every day to explore and photograph and eat and drink and mingle in the crowds. When we weren’t walking we took the subway almost everywhere. The streets back then — in the before times when “covid” was not part of our vocabulary — were packed with people in the familiar New York style.

Offhand, I do not recall exactly where I made this photograph, though I do recall a bright, sunny morning and being distracted by the bright reflection of light on the sidewalk and by the combinations of lines (from the sidewalk itself and from shadows) and curves as the walkway wound into the distance in a place that was momentarily uncrowded.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | FacebookEmail

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.